The Gathering Clouds
by RedTigerRose
Summary: Kat Tabris knew her wedding day would be the day everything changed. She just didn't know how.


For the first time in her life, Kat breathed fresh air.

She had never left the Alienage, let alone the city, before. The darkening sky was clear, without the smog from hundreds of chimneys choking the air above the buildings; the stars glittered like gems without the lights from the city.

And it was silent. No shouting in the streets or children screaming as they chased each other. No sickly coughing from through the paper-thin walls. Just the steady rhythm of the horse's hooves on the dirt path and the creaking of leather tack, the occasional snort from the animal as they disappeared beneath the trees.

Gripping her arms firmly around her savior, Kat squirmed uncomfortably on her perch behind the saddle. Duncan only had one horse, and in their hurry to leave Denerim he didn't have time to purchase a second. Kat had never been on a horse before – she couldn't remember having really seen a horse. The biggest animal she had ever seen had been the mangy runt of a dog that wandered the streets of the Alienage, always stinking of death and yet always seeming to survive, somehow.

Duncan had helped her up behind him, and she felt clumsy as she clambered up onto the horse's great haunches. The horse grunted with agitation when she accidentally kicked him while she tried to arrange her legs – she was still wearing the long skirts of her wedding dress, torn and dirty as they were.

Eventually, she pulled out the dagger from her boot and split her skirts up the middle, so she could ride with both legs on either side of the beast. Modesty be damned.

As Duncan urged the horse into a trot and then a canter, she felt herself slipping and so had found herself with her arms gripped around his chest, hands clasped together. Kat watched as the scenery passed by at speeds she had never been – road signs and fence posts whipped by in a blur. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Denerim for the first time from the outside – tall walls and towers, smoke and firelight, the palace in the center, like a great bird sitting upon its nest.

Home.

But she turned forward and pressed her face against Duncan's back, the smell of leather and sweat filling her nostrils. It wasn't home anymore – she didn't have a home.

Tears came then, finally. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit her trembling lip as she buried her face deeper into Duncan's cloak and held on tight, letting the horse's steps rock her to a soothing trance as she let her emotions free at last, out of sight of the only world she had ever known.

Life in the Alienage was far from perfect, but Kat was happy. Her childhood was spent racing around the vhenedahl, chasing after her cousins under the watchful eyes of their mothers, who sat on the steps of their rundown houses sipping weak, black tea. Her father would come home from his shift as a servant at Bann Rodolf's Denerim estate, tired and sweaty from tending the grounds – but no matter how much his arms ached, Cyrion always threw his daughter up in the air when she came to him, reveling in her shrieks of joy.

Kat knew her father did not approve of her mother training her with the blade, in the tiny stone garden behind their house under cover of darkness. The tall stone walls surrounding them kept them safe from prying eyes, and her mother used broken branches from a nearby tree to teach her daughter how to block and parry, counter and strike. It became a dance between mother and daughter, the sticks clacking against each other as their feet skipped side to side.

Her father was a quiet sort, who believed in just keeping his head down and doing his duty. He believed Adaia was tempting fate, teaching their daughter to fight.

Adaia believed she was simply teaching her daughter how to protect herself.

Her parents were hopelessly in love, despite their differences. Although not unheard of, the residents of the Alienage often were married through arrangement, and even though many grew fond of each other – a companionship through a tough life living on the bottom – many were not considered in love. At least, not in the way that the stories depicted – although many in the Alienage couldn't read, Cyrion was able to afford a meager education from his employment at the Rodolf estate and passed it on to his family.

Burnt in her earliest memories were evenings in their tiny one room home, lit only with a simple candle to push back the gloom. As Kat lay huddled under her thin blankets, she would watch as her parents would dance, her father humming a tune while her mother laughed as he twirled her around the creaky old floorboards.

They were dirty, hungry, and poor; but they were happy.

Until Adaia, notorious for being quite the troublemaker and bigmouth, said the wrong thing to the wrong person.

It wasn't entirely clear what exactly had happened – elves weren't worthy enough to hear the official reports – but she had ended up in a confrontation with a human while heading to work in the town square of Denerim, and had wound up dead.

Kat had been twelve.

There was no justice for a dead elf. No answers, no compensation. Just an empty void where she used to be. Her side of the bed, still ruffled from her sleep the previous night. Her tea cup, with the final dregs still at the bottom, sitting on the window sill outside.

After her funeral, Kat had thrown the branches they had used for sparring into a fire.

As much as she wanted answers for what had happened, to avenge her mother's death, to bring pain down on every human she saw, she didn't want to put her father through the same pain all over again.

They stopped for the night near a stream, where Duncan splashed cool water on his face and through his hair. He unsaddled his horse and rubbed him down with a cloth, then led him to the water for a drink. Kat watched as he filled a couple of skins with water, and stripped his armor off so he only wore his breeches and cotton undershirt.

Kat sat on a stump with her legs crossed, watching as he built the fire with expert ease. He placed the logs just so, then used a flint to create a spark and pushed dry leaves under the wood to catch the flames.

She stayed silent, hands laying in her lap, as she watched the older human perform the basic requirements for survival outside of city walls. Although she hadn't lived a life of luxury, she knew that life on the road was a different sort of survival. She took note of every little thing that he did; she didn't want to outright ask in fear of looking stupid and incompetent.

Even though Duncan seemed kind enough, she did not want to ever be at the mercy of a human, and especially a man. Being under Duncan's care as he escorted her to Ostagar was enough.

She still remembered the feel of rough hands touching her - grabbing at her thighs, her breasts, her buttocks - through her thin dress as she was herded into a back room with the other women.

She could still smell the breath of one of the men, as his hand grasped her hair cruelly and pulled her head back, leering face inches from hers as he told her what sort of evening she was in for.

"Vaughan likes it rough," he had said, a smirk across his lips. "We can usually hear the screams."

As she had tried to pull out of his clutches, sure he was going to pull her hair right out of her head, he had laughed. "Oh, that's the spirit. He loves when they struggle."

Kat had been too young to get the sex talk from her mother before she died, and her father had been quite helpless to explain anything beyond the very basics. Shianni, who worked as a cleaner at the tavern in Denerim, said that the girls she worked with said the first time hurt a lot, but that sex could also be fun, too. Kat had been saving herself for marriage, as was tradition, and had been expecting to lose her virginity the night of her wedding.

Not quite like this, however.

As hands groped her and mouths hurled insults, she grimaced. The other girls sobbed, but she refused to let them see her cry.

She had barely kissed her new husband, his lips soft against hers. They had said their vows, and were officially husband and wife. He had an easy smile, his eyes lighting up when they met hers. She was already falling in love with the dimples in his cheeks…

And then a cocky human had shown up, wearing the honor of his noble family, a gaggle of drunken friends, and half a keg of ale.

And they wondered why the elves hated them so much.

She knew she had been in for a world of pain, but if they could just get it over with, then they could return home and she could be with her new husband and pretend that none of this had happened -

She felt a rough blanket cover her shoulders, and started. In her brooding, she hadn't noticed Duncan come over with it, and flinched. He pulled back slightly, noticing her discomfort.

"Thank you," she said, pulling the blanket around her tight. She tried to offer him a smile, but her lips didn't cooperate.

"I'm going to see if I can catch something for dinner," he said, as he turned and rummaged through his pack and pulled out a bow and some arrows. "I won't be gone long."

She watches as he disappeared into the night, suddenly wishing he wouldn't leave her at all. She shivered, despite the blanket.

Although they were far from the city now, its lights twinkling in the distance, she was still afraid.

As a child, Kat wished her hair was the same red as Shianni's. Her cousin kept her hair short, decorated with braids and feathers and beads and anything else she could find. She fancied herself a noble, trying to decorate herself with the Alienage's equivalent of jewels and pearls.

As an adult, Kat was thankful that she had inherited her mother's likeness – hair the color of straw, although when she brushed it out properly she thought it resembled spun gold.

She gazed at a woman she barely recognized in the mirror before her. Her father had been generous – and probably thankful he only had one child – and had found her a husband from Highever. More specifically, a husband who worked as a servant for the teryn of Highever, and therefore made much more money than a laborer or miner.

Although nervous and sad to leave her home, she also felt excited – leaving home would be an adventure, even if it was just to another Alienage.

The dress her father had bought for her was beautiful, and she suddenly realized that that explained why he had been working so much later than usual in the last few weeks. It was a simple cotton, with yellow thread in the sleeves and hem. It was smooth to the touch – much smoother than any of the clothes she owned, and came in tightly over her waist before spreading out over her thighs and pooling on the floor around her bare feet.

Shianni had busied herself tying flowers into her long braid, which hung over her pale shoulders and to the small of her back.

"Look at you, all grown up," Shianni laughed through a fake sob as she finished her masterwork. "Just think, you're going to get all fat and pregnant."

Kat rolled her eyes. "So delicately put," she said.

Shianni had somehow managed to scrape enough coin to buy some makeup from one of the market stalls in Denerim, and was now smearing powder over Kat's face. "Gonna make you look like a proper little princess," she said, leaning back to admire her work. "Or a tart. Same thing, really."

Kat stifled a giggle. "If you say so."

"I got a look at your future husband," Shianni said as she painted over Kat's eyelids with a sky-blue shadow. "Quite the handsome man, if I do say so myself. Wouldn't mind marrying him myself…if you plan on running away, that is."

Kat laughed as she pushed her cousin away. "Tell you what – if I manage to run away in this gown, you can have him."

"Perfect!" Shianni beamed. "Apparently he's nice, too. Soris was talking to him this morning when he arrived. Said he's very polite. And you know what Soris is like – cries when someone looks at him wrong. If he says someone is nice, you know they must be."

Kat laughed again, gazing at herself in the mirror. She really did look like a princess.

The front door creaked open, and Cyrion stepped in amidst a splash of sunshine.

"Katwyn, are you nearly -" he stopped in his tracks when he saw his daughter. His lined face broke into a smile, his blue eyes brimming with tears. "You look – you look beautiful, my girl…"

She hurried to him, letting him wrap his arms tightly around her. "Don't cry, papa," she said. "You'll make me cry."

He pulled away, holding her at arm's length. "You look just like your mother," he said, pushing a stray strand back from her face.

Kat smiled, holding back tears. Her father had aged since her mother died, his once red hair fading to grey. She got up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. "I love you."

"I love you, too," he said, kissing her forehead.

"You don't have shoes," Shianni said with a grimace.

"Oh, shit," said Kat, looking down at her bare feet beneath the dress.

Cyrion chuckled. "Yep, you are just like your mother."

Kat bit her lip. "Maybe I can just go without? Nothing I own really goes with my dress -"

"Go shoeless? What are you, Dalish?" Shianni huffed. "You'll step on a broken bottle or something. Let's find you something…"

"It'll look stupid though -"

"We won't see your feet anyway, stupid."

Cyrion, who was watching and laughing as they bickered, suddenly looked thoughtful and went to the chest by his bed. He rummaged for a bit, then pulled out a pair of thin, leather boots.

"These were your mothers," he said. "I know they aren't fancy or anything, but maybe for sentimental value -"

"Perfect," said Shianni. She took the boots and ushered Kat into a chair so she could put her boots on for her.

"I can -"

"Quiet, princess," barked Shianni, to Cyrion's amusement.

With the boots strapped into place, Kat got to her feet again. They fit perfectly, although she felt something pinch at her left calf. She lifted her skirt and reach inside the boot, and her fingers felt what seemed like the hilt of a dagger.

She grinned to herself, but didn't say anything as Shianni finished straightening Cyrion's hair.

"Ready?" her father said, holding out an arm for her to take.

Kat took a deep breath. "I think so."

She took his arm, and together they followed Shianni through the front door and into the daylight. The sun shone brightly through the leaves of the vhenedahl, which had been decorated with ribbons for the occasion. Someone was playing a fiddle on the other side of the square, and Kat could hear people chatting and laughing.

Weddings were always a joyful occasion in the Alienage. A chance to ignore the hardships and celebrate happiness and life.

Kat glanced at her father, who still had tears in his eyes as they made their way to a makeshift altar, surrounded by their family and friends. She glimpsed her betrothed, although they were still too far away to see each other properly.

She squeezed her father's arm, beaming up at him as they walked arm in arm to her new life.

Today was going to be a day she would never forget.


End file.
